Insights From Insanity
by Toffke
Summary: A wizard commits the one crime no one was willing to commit, and by doing so, unravels three centuries of peace. Why? Because he is three-fifths happy and sound but two-fifths psychopathic, narcissistic, and mentally gone.


It was on that day the terrible thing happened. I have not much time left to speak anymore, but I hope that whoever discovers this record is of wise intuit, at least wise enough to not be swayed by stupid promises of material things and power—oh what a fool I am. I should just burn this book. But I am scared, dear reader, and I hope you will forgive me, for I am scared, and foolish, and desirous of sympathy. I cannot go to the grave with such secrets that I know, it is too heavy a burden for one! So please, take the book and read it if you must, but humor me, and pretend that you will only close it, burn it, and forget it.

So begins my tale, fool.

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It is funny how when one is upon the scales of judgment one clams up despite himself. It's silly. All my life I believe I have subconsciously wanted to be forgiven, yet now when given the chance I cannot put words to the crimes I have committed. Truly, how could I have done wrong? I am innocent. But that must be a lie I tell myself, because I _know_ the reality of it—indeed, I have physical evidence of it! Messy scrawls in journals dated years, months, weeks, days ago detailing my guilt. I have memories! Locked away and warded safety in the pensieve cabinet, but if I open it thus I can touch the vials, they are solid in my hands, and the memories inside are too. Some days I wish I were a pensieve, because it remembers so clearly, and yet, I cannot. I am…faulty in the ways of a human—no! Nevermind, that is not the matter at hand.

Yes, so I was saying, terrible crimes, terrible, but great. They were not crimes in my mind, they may have been crimes against others, but it was nothing but release to me. I needed, the release, don't you understand? No, no of course you don't; I can understand you as much as you can understand any other person. That is to say, nothing. And that was the crux of the issue. We cannot understand one another. I cannot understand you. I cannot understand my friends. I cannot understand my family. I cannot understand myself. So I _needed_ to do it, because it was fun and exciting, and there is little other entertainment for someone who cannot find entertainment with people. Do not lie and say, "but author, I am not always entertained by people, either, and I do not commit such crimes! Many times I find them boring and dull, and I put up with it!" That is a lie, reader. It is a misunderstanding on your part by what I mean. Let me clear away your misconceptions: What I mean is that though I would like to very much be entertained by people, I cannot. How do you find happiness doing things you find wrong? I find people wrong: they don't care, they aren't passionate, they won't love, they won't live…what is the point of being around things that are dead? Do you, reader, sit in your parent's house or go to the store and see people or walk through the park and meet friends and _feel comfortable around them_? No, impossible, right? They are like living corpses, drawn by fears and pleasures that I do not and cannot understand, as much as I try! And I try! I try! I fail! I fail again!

You must understand that I am so lonely, reader. I am on a world of one million magicals…and none of them are like me. I did not realized this at first. The realization came from an innocent question posed to my mother. I remember talking to her one night, it was the second night I had come back from my apprenticeship for the holidays. We were lying on our beds, with I with my little sister on the bed and mother having given it up for the cot, all in the same room, for my mother could only rent a one-room apartment lest it would cut into our expenses. I remember asking her a strangely philosophical question, I can't remember why, it was very much an uncharacteristic thing of me to do. I said, "Mother, why do I feel…like my friends are not enough?" though the real question I intended was, "why am I so lonely even though I am cherished?"

Because she was a practical woman, she said something practical like, "I've already told you before, you can't just make friends with everyone, for you to feel like friends you must share some interests!" and she spoke briefly about the friend she had in her youth who enjoyed the same muggle films as her. But I was boggled, for I had never come upon anyone who shared the same interests as I did, since my interests, as I learned, were small and strange. But at the time I felt that people were small and petty, like they were empty cardboard cutouts, so to speak, so it was not unreasonable for me to think that friendship was like a hobby. That as long as I was funny and nice to my friends, that was all there was to friendship! But a year after graduating Hogwarts I had nurtured doubts about that "being all there was to it." Because after nineteen years of life I had learned to doubt opinions I formed in my childhood, and armed with that power, I realized something when I was with my friends. Because they were always smiling and laughing, one day a seed of doubt became implanted in my mind and that was the seed that grew to feed my crime. For my mother's words watered it, and my mind-healer fertilized it, and eventually, I could not denounce it any more. I came upon the shocking revelation that when my friends were around me, laughing, smiling, they were-not always _pretending_. To them it was not a strange hobby that everyone kept that no one talked about why they did it. They did not need to pretend to know why they did it. They would feel something…something…comfort? Happiness? Joy? I am now no longer a stranger to saying "I don't know," but at the time it scared me to discover things that I thought I understood yet I did not. So I was understandably shocked. I…am not entirely sure why, for in hindsight it is ridiculous to think that everyone else was like me, but I don't know…perhaps it was an idea so familiar to my mind that I supposed I stopped questioning it since I was very young. Sadly, my terror would only grow.

Now dear reader, you may be asking, what is the point of this story? Why must you bore me with long tales of your confusion? I care about what crime you may have committed, and what you gained and lost from it. Very well, the reason why I ask you to suffer through my tale is to that you will not judge me so harshly for what I did. Not that it matters anyway, for it has been already done, but I fear many people are not equipped to try to understand things that are not conducive to society. But to that I say, if you will not study evil, then how will you recognize it? And I don't mean study as in you describe and you find traits and you leave it at that. I mean you must understand, and to do that you must first let go of your fear, that tiny little fear everyone holds, that if they understand things that are not conducive to society and advancement and happiness, then they too will become those things or become sympathetic to them. Ridiculous. If you have morals you stand by, then these are silly impossibilities. But if you don't, if you are indoctrinated and don't understand your morals, if you have not tested them and tried to break them, if you are weak in mind and bereft of courage…then you may find yourself discovering your true morals, and that you are much, much weaker than you had thought you were. Ah-ha-ha! So what does that mean? There is no harm in getting to know the beasts that go bump in the night, of peeling off your righteous fury and your flimsy film of identity so that you can go swimming with the _sharks..._

Let's try one. What are child-dementors? No, you do not recognize the term? A hint: muggles call them pedophiles. They are not conducive to society. Evil, wrong, inhumane. Can you believe that many of them are tortured by their desires and their visions…much like one Harry Potter. Do you dislike that comparison? Ha-ha, that was a joke. It's a terrible metaphor. Don't feel bad for them, they are obsessed with it, and only rarely are they actually sorry. But there are a sizable amount, masquerading like people, you know, since people don't know what to do with the mentally ill. It just doesn't fit into their clean lives, their little troubles of crushes and loveless parents and grades and money and bosses, bad drinks and meaningless nights! I admit, I am unfairly upset, because they don't understand me and cannot commiserate with me. But the insane know the plights of the insane, and the creation of a child-dementor is one part desperation one part self-deception and one part silence.

Did you like that exercise? I liked it. I liked the part about "masquerading as people." That was my life, but I wasn't aware of it. Truth be told I was happier when I was ignorant of my differences, but eventually the blinds fall through, and because I don't like myself very much, I have no need to go on with rose-colored glasses. I do not need everything to be alright. But it is true that I am lonely, and I hated myself for the fact that I could not "connect" with people even though they could connect with me. Or at least, the lie I showed the world. I dislike that word; I was not a lie. I can be anyone, and it's fun! All I have to do is talk to them and be with them and match their mood—immediately you "click." Then you just have to be vulnerable and honest and accountable and sometimes challenging, because that's what people expect in an ideal friend, and then you have once or twice, accidentally almost, blaze, blaze brightly with the promise of a once-in-a-lifetime encounter, and then they love you, a little bit. And that's the end goal, since a good friendship is of a platonic love.

My mother liked the lie. She cried and didn't understand when I told her the truth, so then I lied about it. My father is not worth speaking about.

The lie…was not always there. When I was younger, before I knew that people were a separate consciousness so to speak, I did not feel the need to lie. But I was always quiet, always watching. I did some things that were not socially appropriate. Nice things, but too nice. Outside of decorum. I asked strange questions. They thought me strange. I was callous, sometimes, but I didn't know, no one had taught me better! I made a teacher hate me once, because of it, but it was the sort of childish callousness and self-conceit of someone whose parents had never explained sharing or feelings or kindness, who only knew of such things from the books that he read day and night, and many books just assume you have an instinctual understanding of feelings. And perhaps people do. But I didn't, I only knew that when I followed the rules, I was praised, and that was better than not being praised, and that sometimes I was sad because people hurt me, which took rather long for me realize you understand, so I used my newfound knowledge to make friends. That was when I started to lie, I think. Because there were some rules that I didn't want to follow, like studying things I didn't want to study, but I knew instinctively that not following the rules was wrong just like not doling out justice is wrong, so when anyone pointed out my error I would lie and lie and scream and lie until they relented. And I wanted to make friends, because I wanted people to like me, so I started to build a persona, a facsimile of a friend personality that never did things to others that hurt itself. It was ready in time for me to lose my previous two friends, who I had built out of common interests, and two others, who had picked me to be their friend, when I left for Hogwarts.

Those years I remember fondly but they were dull. I was sorted in Gryffindor, and it was difficult for me because I had never gotten around to learning how to become friends with Gryffindors before. I made friends with the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs first, the former because they are strange in ways that are similar to me and because they like friendly competition, and the latter because they are…easy targets. They approach you first with the offering of friendship, without judging you beforehand. I made friends with the Slytherins who were friends with the Ravenclaws, although they always frustrated me because they would not do what you wanted them to do, so I could not offer them freebies either, which was the usual way of friendship. To some of them perhaps I was like the errant Hufflepuff, who tried to snare one into a friendship and crack them, figure out what they liked and what they loved. They lied like me, so I felt a sort of kinship with them, though eventually in my later years I realized that there was a chasm that separated us, despite all our superficial similarities. It doesn't matter, it was all an exercise in the end anyways.

Gryffindor, surprisingly, was the last house for me to crack. I simply did not get along with my peers, outside of casual acquaintanceships and mild familiarity with my dorm-mates. I must have stuck out early on as not of their character, likely because I was quiet and careful, disliked sports and disliked fights. Some nights I felt I was in the wrong house, but I never made this clear to my housemates, for fear of reprisal. My fifth year I resolved to remedy this black mar of my success and join the quidditch team, because Gryffindors are passionate about house sports. I was never good enough to make it past the backup players but I was quite content to keep it that way. Moreover, after a year I had accomplished what I set out to do: learn how to make friends with Gryffindors, and though I gained a reputation of being "that weird smart chaser," the black mar was gone, and all was well. I had ins to every house, and my ins had ins to every activity. I was liked by the staff and though I was not head boy, I gained the freedom of one, especially after announcing my apprenticeship to the Unspeakables a couple months into my seventh year.

I had completed Hogwarts, and escaped to where I knew I needed to be, in the Ministry, among the volatile devices. You must think me of precocious evil, having planned to commit the crimes I did when I was in school, but you judge me too early! I wanted to do something good for the world: I wanted desperately to make everyone happy. Why? Because I wanted to be well-liked and I was powerful, and the caveat of being powerful is that it gives you responsibilities, does it not? It was obvious what I had to do: I had to figure out how to make everyone happy, make everyone understand each other. I played with mental links, with people's hate and fear and patience and passivity. The research drew me into despair, for the conclusions I reached were dire: they either meant for me to control everyone, to build individual universes for everyone, to place false memories into people, to indoctrinate people. All are imperfect solutions as they require falsehood, and falsehood is never maintained. Eventually, I started running into problems concerning the limits of magic, and I was confronted with my own powerlessness. Even prodigies, not the fake prodigies who do something amazing, but the real ones who do brilliant things over and over and over, do not tackle the problem. Why? Because creating more happiness is actually not a standalone problem in of itself, rather, it is a solution to a more fundamental problem: what makes life worth living?

And this is where I started to die. You see, I do not know what makes life worth living. Living is very meaningless you know, there are no goals except that which you set yourself. People have likes and dislikes, so naturally they have goals and fears. But I do not have those things. I do not…remember feelings. I do not remember what sadness feels like when the stimulus for "sad" is gone. I do not remember what happiness feels after the stimulus for "happy" is gone. I don't remember how it feels to love someone after I don't see them for an hour. I didn't know I was different, but when you are an Unspeakable, you are surrounded by people much more brilliant and aware than your usual crowd. They talk about feelings without assuming you know how to instinctively feel a feeling, because they are not only used to commenting about the abstract and about papers and research and theory but also well-equipped to do so. It did not do me good at the time. I merely fell into a depression for four months, but that's fine, after I became better it became a memory, and I lost all feeling associated with it. But I was no longer certain about the world and my place in it. I was lost. Worse, I was alone. No one else dwells on these types of questions without needing an answer, so they make one up sooner or later. But I don't like myself and I don't need to live, so I was stuck in this quandary, of not knowing whether I should live or die for two years as I mindlessly did only as I was told and helped people as I was told to.

I talked to my mother again, and I said I was afraid I had some type of personality problem and she said it was ridiculous. I went to the mind-healer, and they said I had some sort of generalized anxiety. Generalized anxiety? I have never felt a thing in my life! Or maybe I have, I don't know, I don't remember. I needed someone who could understand me, to tell me how I felt. I did not know me, I did not know what I wanted, only that I wanted. Because I was a Gryffindor, and the only commonality among Gryffindors is that they have big egos. And eventually, after sleepless nights and harrowing shame, of confusion and this stupid drag of a pointless life, I could not anymore. I was tired of mocking me for not coming up with a solution. I did not know who I was, I did not know what I wanted, but I knew that I was good at getting what I wanted, and good at lying to myself. So I stopped. I stopped censoring my thoughts, I left my restraint in my memories where it could rot. I stopped reminding myself to be guilty for things that people tell me are "bad" or "wrong". Ha, I don't even know what that _means_. I stopped the lies and the feel-good and the trite sensibilities of people, and I did only what I wanted to do, and I realized that I am _mad_. I care for nothing but my own fun. I care not for myself. I care not for my family. I care not for friends or society or happiness or well-being. I care not for the advancement of the world. I care not for sickness or death or power or apathy or strength or courage or beauty or truth.

I just want my own fun. I want to be eternally shirk boredom. Why did I seek to make friends with people? Because it was fun, because I did not understand. Until it was resolved. Why did I seek to give people happiness? Because it was fun, because it was a puzzle. Until it was resolved. Why do I live? Because it is fun, and not boring, because if I am living then that beats being dead. Because I am a Gryffindor, and I live to feed my own ego.

That's why I revoked the statute of secrecy. It's much more fun to watch the world go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

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A/N: Not sure whether to leave this as one-shot or continue. If it is continued, it'll probably get a description of the plan and the chaos and maybe reveal the identity of the author? I'm not really sure how much to invest in this...also if someone would like to be a beta or just comment about flow, would appreciate a good edit of this.


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